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On CBS, 'Dr. Phil' Is Now A Platform For Far-Right Hate And Disinformation

On CBS, 'Dr. Phil' Show Now Promotes Far-Right Hate And Disinformation

The newest season of CBS’ Dr. Phil has regularly featured right-wing personalities, including anti-abortion activists, Fox News and PragerU personalities, and members of far-right student and parent groups, giving them platforms to share misinformation and hate.

This trend appears to be a distinct turn for the show in contrast to the previous season. Dr. Phil now tackles conservative culture war issues like critical race theory, transgender athletes, “cancel culture,” cultural appropriation, and abortion.

During the previous season that began in September 2021, the first 25 episodes included 15 episodes on personal family stories, 8 on true crime, and just 2 focused on societal topics described as being “in the news”: "dynamic" seniors and bad flying experiences. Of the first 25 episodes of the current season, 24 have focused on general societal topics, with only one true crime-focused episode and no episodes surrounding personal conflicts.

Season 20 did include two appearances from particularly bigoted right-wing media personalities. Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire appeared in an episode in January focused on nonbinary and transgender identity. Right-wing media used the episode to spread hate against nonbinary and transgender people online, and it has since been erased from Hulu, Dr. Phil’s site, and YouTube. And right-wing troll James Lindsay appeared in January 2022 to discuss critical race theory in schools, comparing it to neo-Marxism.

These types of guests are now commonplace. In many instances, host Phil McGraw does not provide background on the groups his guests represent.

One of the show’s newest episodes, which tackled supposed cancel culture and featured Fox News personality Tomi Lahren, caught the attention of her employer, with McGraw making an appearance on Hannity to discuss it. McGraw cited a statistic from libertarian think tank the CATO Institute that “almost two-thirds of Americans are afraid to speak out for fear that they will say something they shouldn’t say” and ended his interview saying, “We don’t have to get offended every time we have the chance to be offended.”

Here are a number of the many appearances by right-wing influencers in 2022:

  • Anti-abortion activist Lila Rose appeared as a guest during the September 12 episode, titled “Carry to Bury: The Abortion Debate.” Rose, the founder of the anti-abortion group Live Action, argued with an audience member, calling abortion “the intentional destruction of an innocent human life.” Rose also falsely stated that “abortion is devastating to women’s mental health” though data shows restricting access to abortion is more likely to cause mental health issues in women.

  • Federalist contributor and member of the conservative women’s group Independent Women's Network Asra Nomani was a guest on the September 15 episode, where she advocated for a mother who claims her child was using different pronouns at school and no one from the school notified her. Nomani pushed for parental involvement in conversations around students’ gender identity.
  • During the September 30 episode, PragerU host Will Witt claimed cultural appropriation is actually appreciation because “you can’t claim that something is just a part of your culture either. It’s for people to share and celebrate and use.” Witt also said that Native Americans he spoke with “wanted people to come and say ‘geronimo,’ they wanted planes named the Apache helicopter, they wanted the Washington Redskins as their sports team to celebrate their culture.” Many Native American groups actually pushed for Washington’s football team to change their name and said they found the use of “Redskin” offensive.
  • Another PragerU podcast host and conservative activist, Amala Ekpunobi, appeared in the same September 30 episode. Ekpunobi argued with panelists who claimed cultural appropriation is a problem and pushed back against definitions of cultural appropriation with a slew of irrelevant questions.
  • Fox News and Outkick commentator Tomi Lahren appeared on the October 10 show to talk about “cancel culture” and how it has impacted her. During her segment, Lahren claimed that “it seems to be mostly conservatives that are mostly targeted by this cancel culture.” Dr. Phil aired footage from right-wing student group Turning Point USA of a recent college event where Lahren was slated to speak and protests “turned violent,” causing her to be escorted out by police.
  • In part two of the episode on cancel culture, aired on October 11, members of the right-wing student group Young America’s Foundation claimed they experienced censorship or cancellation after posting anti-abortion and anti-leftist flyers on their college campus. In a previously recorded segment, members of the group claimed they promoted “traditional American values” like “free speech.” The flyers shown on air said “the leftists lie” and “beware the destructive influences and blind arrogance of the left.” YAF claimed the fliers were posted in celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In an interview with Dr. Phil, one member of YAF claimed that “the faculty conspired together … to suppress our speech.”
  • During an episode published October 12 about harm reduction in communities with drug abuse crisis, frequent Fox News guest and climate contrarian Michael Shellenberger was identified as someone who said “our country has gone soft on drugs.” Shellenberger stated that housing should be “earned” by drug abusers, noting that “the reward for being off drugs is that you get an apartment.” Along with host Dr. Phil, Shellenberger continuously refuted data and facts stated by addiction specialist Maia Szalavitz, claiming harm reduction strategies used in Europe are not the same as proposed plans for California and their strategies would not work in the United States. It has been shown that harm reduction strategies have been successful in reducing deaths from drug overdoses in other countries.
  • Right-wing commentator Brad Polumbo appeared during the October 14 episode, which put Generation Z influencers against Baby Boomers in a discussion about the differences between age groups. Polumbo claimed that Gen Z is getting free speech wrong, stating that “they think things like hate speech need to be stopped” making air quotation marks around the phrase “hate speech.” Polumbo also fought back against fellow panel members who called repercussions for saying offensive things a “positive thing” by stating, “You’re not free to say whatever you want if you get fired for an off-color joke.”
  • Conservative author Greg Lukianoff spoke out against Gen Z influencers in the October 14 episode who said it’s normal to have repercussions for offensive language by claiming, “The idea that this is just business as usual is just wrong.” Lukianoff also claimed the number of “canceled” college professors is out of control: “You didn’t have these kinds of numbers even during McCarthyism.” Lukianoff also appeared in the October 10 episode to discuss cancel culture, and he and Dr. Phil implied that watching Will Smith slap Chris Rock at the Oscars may have led to the attack on Salman Rushdie in a kind of “contagion effect.”
  • Co-founders of the far-right “parental rights” group Moms for Liberty Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich appeared on the show on October 19 to advocate in favor of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and similar legislation for all 50 states. While explaining Moms for Liberty’s plan to ban predominantly LGBTQ books from school libraries, Descovich claimed that “it’s unfortunate that many LGBTQ books have so much sexual violence in them.” This year saw “unprecedented” attempts at book bans across the country, with LGBTQ-themed books often the target.

Justice and another member of Moms for Liberty, Quisha King, also appeared on the show in January 2022 in an episode focused on critical race theory. The show described Justice and King as believing “CRT is being taught in K-12 schools and is poisoning the minds of their children.”

McGraw has occasionally platformed well-known right-wing figures on his show in the past. In February 2019, far-right extremists Ben Shapiro and Andy Ngo made appearances on an episode about Jussie Smollet lying about being a victim of a hate crime. During the episode, Shapiro claimed the mainstream media refused to cover hate crimes not committed by white supremacists because they don't fit their narrative. Shapiro appeared on Dr. Philagain in March of 2019 to promote his book, The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great, which McGraw called “very well done.”

In October of this year Dr. Phil was the second most-watched talk show in the US, just behind Live with Kelly and Ryan. Last season the show averaged 2.405 million viewers nationwide during the 2021-2022 TV season.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

President Joe Biden

Promoting Their Biden Narrative, Beltway Press Corps Fails Again

Reprinted with permission from Press Run

One day after the New York Times in a page-one piece implied that President Joe Biden is an incompetent who lacks empathy, the State Department announced the U.S. had successfully evacuated 30,000 people from Afghanistan since the end of July, and that 8,000 people departed on Saturday alone, as they filled 60 departing flights from Kabul airport. So much for incompetence.

A thinly veiled opinion column that ran under the banner of "news analysis," the Times piece was written by White House correspondent Peter Baker. Pounding the daily's preferred downer troop withdrawal narrative, Baker went out of his way to suggest Biden, whose administration is overseeing a massive Afghanistan airlift and troop withdrawal, is similarly incompetent to Trump, who oversaw the death of 600,000 Americans to Covid-19 last year. It was a stunning bout of failed, Both Sides journalism by Baker.

Led by the New York Times' and CNN's frenzied reporting and analysis, the media have gone all in with the narrative that Biden's presidency sits on the precipice of ruin in the wake of U.S.'s long-expected troop departure from Afghanistan. (Fact: It does not.)

Deliberately falling down a deep well of optics reporting (Biden is "defiant and defensive") and launching sweeping, and often hysterical, conclusions that are not based in fact, the press gathered up its forces days ago and set off on a one-sidedfeeding frenzy excursion, where week-old "chaotic images" are still treated as breaking news by CNN. Let's be honest, if the State Departement announced it had evacuated 100,000 people from Kabul, it wouldn't change the media's predetermined coverage.

Eager to injure Biden, Beltway scribes gleefully engage in groupthink, echo GOP talking points without pause, and set their sights on the leader of the Democratic Party.

Sound familiar? Does this conjure up disturbing images of the 2016 campaign, when the same invested journalists unleashed a feeding frenzy on the country's top Democrat, feasted on "optics" analysis, badly overplayed the facts of the story, excitedly amplified Republican lawmakers, obsessed over process, and repeatedly demanded apologies from Hillary Clinton for how she handled her private email correspondence?

It's not possible to watch much of the misguided Afghanistan coverage and not see the clear similarities between that and the media's woeful But Her Emails brand of coverage that helped elect Trump.

Reminder: ABC, CBS, and NBC's network evening newscasts in 2016 aired just 32 minutes of in-depth campaign policy coverage. That same year they devoted 100 minutes to the Clinton email stories. Virtually all of the attention was negative.

Both Afghanistan and But Her Emails coverage strictly adheres to a (fantasy) storyline of the media's making, and one that features a floundering Democrat unable to put off raging political fires.

On Sunday, CNN claimed the U.S. was inflicting "moral injury" by "abandoning" allies. This, as America continue to evacuate tens of thousands of allies. That same day CNN claimed that Biden's long-expected troop withdrawal meant the U.S. was "walking away from the world stage" and "leaving Europe exposed." Fact: Most European troops left Afghanistan seven years ago. Not sure how that now means Biden's move in Afghanistan is leaving that continent "exposed."

Despite days of wildly excited media analysis about how Afghanistan could destroy Biden's entire presidency, the press still can't find any evidence the story is registering with voters. It's also impossible to recall a week of nonstop military "crisis" coverage when not a single shot was fired at U.S. troops. But for Afghanistan, the media gladly make an exception.

A Times column recently counseled how Biden could "save his presidency" in the wake of the Afghanistan controversy. Biden's ending an extremely unpopular war and is bringing the troops home without a single U.S. casualty in the process, but he has to "save his presidency"?

That makes no sense.

On Friday, NBC's indignant Richard Engel tweeted his upset over the fact that American officials were negotiating with the Tablian in order to allow for a transfer of power that's as peaceful as possible. Keep in mind, Engel has covered the Afghanistan conflict for years, but on Friday he feigned shock that after losing a 20-year war, the U.S. would be negotiating its exit with the victors of the war. The purposeful naïveté was remarkable — but essential in order to bash Biden. For the record, it was because of those U.S.-Taliban negotiations that U.S. troops have not come under fire in the last week.

Sometimes it was just easier to make stuff up in order to attack Biden. The Times' Frank Bruni accused Biden of "arrogance" because he "thought leaving Afghanistan would be simple," even though Biden never once suggested that leaving Afghanistan would be "simple."

Also on Friday, the Wall Street Journal ran a Biden gotcha "exclusive" on page one, which was widely picked up by other news outlets: "Internal State Department Cable Warned of Kabul Collapse." The smoking gun, right? Biden's team was warned that the Taliban would quickly take over Afghanistan in early August when U.S. troops were withdrawing, but the Biden team ignored the counsel.

Wrong.

The State Department cable warned of an Afghanistan government collapse after the troops withdrawal deadline of August 31. Also, halfway through the article, the Journal conceded the cable was received by top State Department officials who welcomed the on-the-ground-analysis, and who folded the information into the contingency plans. So much for that gotcha. But all day, journalists were buzzing about a confidential cable that Biden's team supposedly ignored. "A WSJ scoop that casts perhaps the harshest light yet on the administration's performance," Politico exclaimed, completely misrepresenting the Journal story.

When the press eagerly signs off on a crisis narrative involving a Democrat, almost no new facts on the ground will change their committed view. We saw that in 2016 when the press played a key role in tearing down Clinton, and we're seeing it this month with unrestrained Afghanistan coverage.

CBS News Slammed For ‘Complicit’ Interview With QAnon Rioter

CBS News Slammed For ‘Complicit’ Interview With QAnon Rioter

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Should Americans hear from an individual in jail facing felony charges related to their alleged participation in the January 6 insurrection, especially on the day terrorism experts say the QAnon cult might again engage in violence so dangerous the House has postponed business for the day?

Some are saying no, and blasting CBS News for promoting its jailhouse interview today with one of the most recognizable faces from the insurrection, Jacob Chansley, better known as the "QAnon Shaman."

Responding to a clip from its "60 Minutes +" interview with correspondent Laurie Segall that CBS News posted to Twitter, attorney Max Kennerly blasted the network:

He was far from the only one.

In an associated CBS News article the subhead reads: "Jacob Chansley, the man seen wearing face paint and a fur helmet with horns during the January 6 insurrection, tells 60 Minutes+ he was trying 'to bring God back to the Senate.'"

That article quotes Chansley extensively, in part saying, "My actions were not an attack on this country," and, "I sang a song. And that's a part of shamanism… I also stopped people from stealing and vandalizing that sacred space, the Senate. Okay? I actually stopped somebody from stealing muffins out of the– out of the break room."

Others tweeted out the CBS video, with some saying: "giving this man a platform to whine about being a victim seems irresponsible," "Maybe you should be interviewing some of the researchers who have been following QAnon for a long time and warning about the dangers of it. But you'd rather interview Qbacca, because putting freaks on the air is good for ratings," "Why do we care about his story? WHY?! This man is a traitor and insurrection leader. WHY?!!," "What have you contributed to journalism's advancement today…nada," "Christ we love handing extremists microphones in this country," and "WHY ARE YOU ALLOWING DOMESTIC TERRORISTS AIRTIME," among many others.

The article quotes Chansley extensively, and ends with this paragraph, which reads more like a press release than a news article: "Segall's report, including her remote interview with Chansley, can be seen on 60 Minutes+, a new show available on ViacomCBS' new streaming platform, Paramount+."

Trump Budget Chief Can’t Explain Why GOP Blocked Military Pay During Shutdown

Trump Budget Chief Can’t Explain Why GOP Blocked Military Pay During Shutdown

Republicans have been backed into a corner for blocking military pay, and they have no good answers for why they’re harming the troops through their political gamesmanship.
Donald Trump’s budget chief Mick Mulvaney had no real answer when asked why the White House and Republican Party are blocking service members’ pay and benefits during the GOP-engineered shutdown of the federal government.

Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill introduced a resolution to ensure that military personnel continue to receive their pay during the shutdown, as President Obama had done during the Republican-led shutdown in 2013.

But that lie was exposed on Sunday morning when Mulvaney was confronted by Face the Nation host John Dickerson about comments he made during the 2013 shutdown, in which Mulvaney pointed out that “our troops are still being paid.”

“I have a much greater understanding of a shutdown now that I’m the O.M.B. director,” Mulvaney insisted, but then falsely implied that military pay was deferred in 2013, as it will likely be this time around.

But Dickerson wasn’t dissuaded. “Claire McCaskill … brought up a vote to pay them while the shutdown was going on,” Dickerson said, adding “That vote — Mitch McConnell didn’t bring that up for vote.”

“Why wouldn’t the White House, the executive branch, do everything they can to take care of the troops while this is being adjudicated?” Dickerson asked.

Mulvaney first tried to dodge the question by vaguely referring to other unrelated resolutions that were proposed Friday night into Saturday morning, but finally chalked the blocking of military pay by Republicans to “the sort of the dynamic flow in the Senate.”

Unfortunately, our troops can’t pay their bills with Mulvaney’s excuses.

All day long on Sunday, Trump officials like Mulvaney tried to escape the consequences of their shutdown, and time and again, those efforts were met with failure.

Hopefully, that failure will lead them to end this shutdown quickly, and stop holding Americans hostage to their destructive agenda.